Page:American Boy's Life of William McKinley.djvu/150

120 "And don't ever take a case unless you are sure your client is in the right," went on Nancy McKinley.

"I'll promise that, too," he returned. And William McKinley kept those promises. In after life he was often tempted to take hold of what are known as "shady" cases, and was offered big retainers for so doing, but he invariably declined. If he did not conscientiously believe that his would-be customer was in the right, he refused to serve him. Would that all other young lawyers might follow his example.

He was now a full-fledged lawyer, with practically the whole state of Ohio before him. Where to settle down he hardly knew. Poland seemed to offer no inducement, and Youngstown was already full of lawyers. One of his sisters was teaching school at Canton, and to this town he journeyed.

"I think I can do as well here as anywhere," he said to her. "And it will be nice if we are together."

His means being small, he could not fit up an elaborate office, and so hired a small room in the rear of a building on one of the main streets, a building since torn down